The study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics Tuesday, was based on data obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which gives a breakdown of causes of death in 657 cases of suicide among children ages five to 11 between 1993 and 2012, 84 percent of whom were boys.
Researchers were surprised to find that suicide rates among black boys ages five to 11 nearly doubled between 1993 and 2012, rising from 1.78 to 3.47 per million. This happened while the rates among white boys of the same age group decreased from 1.96 to 1.31 per million.
Jeffrey Bridge, epidemiologist at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, who led the study, told CNN that the results were surprising because suicide rates have historically been higher among whites across the age groups.
“Suicide rates in the U.S. have historically been higher among white individuals across all age groups. We were very surprised to see higher suicide rates among black children over time.”
“I was shocked, I’ll be honest with you. I looked at it and I thought, ‘Did we do the analysis correctly?’ I thought we had made a mistake,” he said.
To confirm the trend, the researchers waited for a year until the 2012 data was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The data only confirmed the trend they had observed.
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